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His biggest problem-he'll be the first to admit-is pacing himself. Michael Bryant knows that with boxing gloves on, speed is his advantage. "I always try to end a bout before the third round," he says with a laugh. That means delivering a knockout blow to the other guy before Bryant himself loses steam. TKOs may come in handy in the rough-and-tumble life of provincial politics, but as Ontario's Minister of Economic Development-the guy overseeing a bailout for the ailing auto sector-the 42-year-old will need endurance, too.

Lean and muscular, Bryant is light on his feet in the ring, where he's spent hundreds of hours since he took up boxing more than 30 years ago. But he's also fierce-he squints his eyes and grits his jaw when he takes a punch, a far cry from the genial and charming demeanour that has made him such a popular cabinet minister. (He was appointed attorney general in 2003 and became famous for banning pit bulls. Next came aboriginal affairs in 2007, then a bump to his current portfolio this past September.) As he hits the bag or his trainer's mitt, there is a satisfying thud-a burst of air that sounds a bit like someone gasping after a shot to the gut.

Bryant took up boxing at the age of 10, after his small size (he's under 5 foot 8) precluded most team sports. "In boxing, they match you by weight, so I was sparring with the ittiest-bittiest boxers around," he says. Still, he considers his mother's willingness to let him step into the ring a great sacrifice on her part. "It's hardly a parent's dream for their child to go off and get hit," says Bryant, who grew up near Victoria. His style involves not getting hit-being quick on his feet and quick to duck. In all the years he has boxed, including countless amateur bouts, he's never had a serious injury. "This is a very primal sport, one where you are given permission to hit someone," he says. "The intensity is the draw: Every second of the three minutes you are in the ring counts. Every second is one where you could get walloped."

It's also a great way to stay fit, something the busy politician and father of two (Sadie is 6 and Louis, 4) appreciates. "It's a total body workout, top to bottom," Bryant says, and sure enough, almost as soon as he dons the gloves, he develops a fine sheen of sweat on his brow. For years, he trained at Atlas Boxing Club, an authentically smelly gym in the basement of the Hungarian cultural centre in Toronto. It's in his St. Paul's riding, so while he took pointers from a former Olympic coach, Bryant also rubbed shoulders with constituents; one time, while he was attorney general, he was approached about a legal matter-something involving a crime and deportation. "I stayed away from that," he says. But for the most part, the encounters were apolitical. That hasn't always been the case in the ring. Bryant remembers one bout when the local boxing league fouled up his weight class, and the 15-year-old flyweight was paired with a much larger fighter. "There was a 20-pound difference between us," he says. "The guy's name was Trevor Tobias. I survived the fight but got clobbered but good. It's humiliating to lose at boxing. You are starkly up there, alone. It's a sport that teaches humility."

The parallels with political life aren't hard to see-it's technically a team sport, but success comes down to individual performance. Bryant is a lawyer by training, and his star burned bright early on: As a novice at venerable New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell (he graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in '92, then did his master of laws at Harvard), he recalls a competition file he was given, with instructions to keep the billing down. The feeling was that the client couldn't pay now, but was going places. That client was Microsoft.

Bryant had met Montreal-born entertainment lawyer Susan Abramovitch in the early '90s, while both were clerks at the Supreme Court of Canada, and home beckoned. They moved to Toronto in 1995 and got married two years later. He moved into politics soon after-he was first elected as an MPP in 1999. "I grew up in a family that believed in the value of public service," Bryant says, noting his lawyer dad was a two-term mayor of Esquimalt, B.C. Still, helping ailing auto companies and shepherding industry through a recession in Canada's biggest province has to qualify as a heavyweight bout. "Rocky said everyone wants a shot," Bryant says. "I've been given a shot to do something. The stakes are high, the risks are high, but I'm feeling confident about what we've done and will do."

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FIGHTIN' WORDS

- Favourite boxer Muhammad Ali

- Favourite move "Not getting hit"

- Best bout ever Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier in the famous 1975 "Thrilla in Manila" -Ali was declared the winner after 14 rounds

- Worst hit you ever took "Trevor Tobias, right cross, first round, 1982-the rest is fuzzy"

- Best boxing movie Rocky (1976)

- Toughest opponent "Pit bulls, so I banned them"